The Waldron Hotel in downtown Corinth, Mississippi, towered two full stories above the intersection of Waldron and Taylor Streets. The L-shaped structure stood across from the Alcorn County courthouse and just down the block on Waldron from Mississippi’s oldest pharmacy, Borroum’s Drug Store (1865). The hotel’s main entrance was in the round tower at the L’s corner. On the Waldron Street side was another entrance, under a sign with a one-word message: CAFE. In that restaurant, I first encountered fine dining.
In an unpublished memoir, Corinthian Nelda Boatman Parrish (1921-2010) said of the Waldron Cafe: “It was the ‘place to eat’ in town and was operated by Mrs. Kate McCullar who tasted all the cooking. You were served on a freshly ironed tablecloth with cloth napkins and a wait staff dressed in crisp white coats. You always felt like you had the very best of service.”
In 1946, when I was about eight and in the fourth grade, my parents announced their intention to expose me to the rarefied world of gourmands and boulevardiers as it existed in Corinth, population six thousand. I would begin my education as a sophisticated boy about town at the Waldron Cafe, a festive venue that emphasized such graces as behavior, dress, and appreciation for good food on a well-laid table.
Prime time at the Waldron Cafe was Sunday dinner after church. The crowd dressed, if not to the nines, at least to the high sevens or eights. Voluble diners filled the cafe’s sixteen tables, less noisy than they might have been had liquor been available. Actually it was, but only from bellhops and sold only to traveling salesmen and suchlike. Adult beverages were not welcome at the Waldron Cafe.
We walked to the restaurant from the Waldron Street Christian Church, just across the street. Both H. F. and Doris were resplendent in navy blue suits; H. F.’s had pinstripes and Doris’s didn’t. I sported a pale blue tweed sport coat over a short-sleeved white shirt, its collar spread over the coat’s lapels. Slacks of an unremembered hue and brown lace-up shoes completed my ensemble.
A lady, maybe Mrs. McCullar herself, showed us to a table that was indeed covered by a spotless white tablecloth. The unoccupied side of the table was soon manned by a smiling black waiter wearing a white jacket and armed with a pitcher of water. He filled our glasses and made small talk, commenting that he had not seen the “little man” in the cafe before.
Doris explained the menu, noting that the fried chicken was excellent and that I was not yet old enough to savor the T-bone steaks. Pork chops and fried fish were available, and there was a choice of vegetables. Vegetables were the enemy; they might as well have offered a choice between castor oil and milk of magnesia.
At our house and at the nearby home of my grandparents, good table manners were enforced. One did not hold a fork and knife upright with their butt ends resting on the table, as did the Katzenjammer Kids and Popeye in the comics. You filled a soupspoon by scooping it away from you. Your knife’s edge, however, lay toward you when you rested it on your plate. Bring nothing to the table other than your appetite. In most instances, children were to be seen and not heard.
I mention that to show that the Waldron Cafe did not intimidate me, though it was to be my first time at a restaurant where everyone, including servers, was dressed up. The kitchen even dressed its chicken legs with frilly paper things so you wouldn’t get grease on your fingers.
When the waiter asked me for my order, again calling me “little man,” I uttered a phrase that became a family joke for the next sixty years. I had pored over the menu but found nothing that met my culinary standards, so I said, “May I please have a hamburger?”
Hilarity ensued. Here my parents bring their child for his first fine-dining experience and the little dunce orders a hamburger. H. F. thought this was funnier than all hell, but Doris, despite her laughter, I fear thought I was being a smartass.
Was I being a smartass? After all those years, I’m not sure. But I got my off-menu hamburger.
William Jeanes lives in Dinsmor.
